Experts say Health Care Decisions Day is good time to create care directive

Monday

Apr 9, 2012 at 12:01 AMApr 9, 2012 at 9:04 AM

National Health Care Decisions Day is today, and health care experts say they hope the public takes time to think about and create advance care directive plans.

Deborah Allard

What if an 18-year-old is in a car accident and can’t communicate his care wishes? Do his parents automatically have a say about his treatment? What if his parents are divorced and can’t agree on the right course of action?

What if the accident happens instead to a woman in her 40s, and she is living with her boyfriend but they’re not married? Is he able to make her health care decisions if she can’t?

What if the woman is 65 and has been living with her partner for 20 years? Should it be her partner or her grown children who make the tough decisions?

With a completed health care proxy or advance directive, there would be answers to those questions. Otherwise, the answers are sketchy at best and could involve attorneys, hearings and extensive grief.

“If we don’t have it, we don’t know what the patient would want,” said Stephen Pires, vice president of Care Continuum and Risk Services for Southcoast Hospitals Group, the entity that runs Charlton Memorial Hospital.

Pires is hoping that because today is National Healthcare Decisions Day, people will consider filling out an advance directive, no matter their age.

“It’s a written document that specifies a person’s health care wishes,” Pires said. “What we tell people is everyone over 18 should consider this.”

A health care proxy allows a person to assign someone they trust to make their health care decisions when they can’t communicate, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be their next of kin.

There are other forms of advance directives that specify what types of lifesaving treatment a person would want or what they would not want.

Pires said people sometimes have a hard time thinking about such difficult issues, feel they’re too young for something life-threatning to happen or don’t want to face their own mortality. People often fill out a health care proxy when they are about to have surgery or have received a scary diagnosis, he said.

Attorney Andrew Garcia, who writes an online blog for The Herald News, said a health care proxy is something that blended families, same sex couples and unmarried couples should definitely consider.

“They especially need their health care decisions documented,” Garcia said. “They can definitely hit road blocks ... and be left out of the process.”

Health care proxies can easily be found in most health care settings, like hospitals and doctor’s offices. They’re also available online at www.southcoast.org (under the “I want to go to” box) and at the National Healthcare Decisions Day website at www.nhdd.org.

After filling out a health care proxy or advance directive, copies should be given to health care providers, such as primary care physicians and even family members.

“It’s a valuable tool, and in Massachusetts it’s legal and binding,” Pires said.